The Election - Part 4: The Vast Right-wing Conspiracy

[As always, it follows Prts I, 2 and 3]

“I’m…errr….I’m sorry,” said Elsin, not a little fearfully. She might have been an evil, manipulative little Capitalist, but even Elsin couldn’t help being intimidated by the sheer menace of Bradohov’s personality. Old-timers at the club still recount the story of how Bradohov, in his Union-leader hey-day had once confronted a whole batch of B-schoolers on a factory visit to the Midgard Glass Factory and got them to make a contribution to the Worker’s Welfare Fund.

“I said, GET OUT!” said Bradohov, gesturing impatiently towards the door.

“But…but…my story, I…please!” whined Elsin.

Bradohov wasn’t listening, however. With a grunt, he advanced on our little group and laid a powerful hand….on Ariel.

“You! I’ve ‘ad my heye on you, I have. You’ve been provoking everybody in ‘ere all evening. All the time I’ve known you, you ain’t done nothing but provoke people. Half the fights in here start because of you! I’ve had about as much of you as I can take. This is a respeckible establishment, and people like you just don’t belong!”

The look of joy on Elsin’s face is beyond my descriptive powers. Ariel, on the other hand, seemed to be taking it pretty well.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bradohov, I’m paid to play the piano here. You can’t pitch me out like that.”

“Yes I can. Consider your contract terminated. Now get out!”

“Jormund!” exclaimed Ariel.

“I say, Bradohov, old chap,” I said, getting to my feet, “This really isn’t on, you know! Not cricket, old chap.”

“Let’s not ‘ave a scene ‘ere, Mr. Elver,” said Bradohov, “You can complain to the Party later if you like.”

“It’s all your fault,” Ariel screamed, pointing at Elsin.

“Listen to the nice man, Miss. Pachyderma,” gloated Elsin.

“If I leave now, you won’t be able to hear my part of the story,” pointed out Ariel, “So you’d better tell Bradohov here that you weren’t provoked into throwing that cup.”

“Anything you contribute won’t be worth knowing,” said Elsin, “so don’t let that keep you.”

“Are you quite sure?” repeated Ariel, “Don’t come groveling to me later.”

“When I need tips on how to be a tart, I’ll consult you. Until then, you can keep your own counsels with my compliments.”

With a toss of her head that would have crushed the spirit of a more sensitive soul than Elsin’s, Ariel, began to walk towards the door. I moved to follow.

“Where do you think you’re going, Jormund?” asked Elsin.

“Where do you think I’m going?” I shot back, “Wherever she is.”

“You have a story to finish, and you’re finishing it,” Elsin laughed, “Or else that little bit about the Mauritian Bank account makes it to tomorrow’s afternoon edition. Think about it.”

I hesitated.

“I’ll wait for you in the car,” said Ariel in a steady voice, “you’d better feed this demon her diet of deceit.”

“Keep the heater on,” I muttered, turning back to return to the sofa, “We won’t be long.”

“So Korchell had scored the party nomination,” said Elsin, consulting her notes, “what happened then?”

“We weren’t happy. None of us were, and we let him know it. I think it was Fenderis who started the name-calling. ‘Spineless photograph of a child artiste’ is what you called him, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s about when he socked me on the nose.”

“Then Hedyikk joined in, of course, and things were going rather badly for Korchell, until Winter Coral stepped in and separated them. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt, though Korchell did limp with his right leg for a few days after. Anyway, the gist of the argument was that we felt Korchell was not fit to represent the party – and I’m sure few people in our party – or yours – would disagree.”

“Winter Coral separated them? She’s a slip of a thing!” said Elsin.

“She also once killed forty-five Sith in under an hour during the siege of Marshanband. If I was you, Elsin Fasttrack, I’d be very careful what I wrote about General Winter Coral in that dishrag you call a newspaper,” said Fatty in the low respectful voice we usually used when referring to Winter.

“We parted in high dudgeon. Korchell accused us of being ‘insiders’ and we told him he would surely be the end of the Socialist movement in Midgard if he ever got elected,” I said, “though at the time I must say I didn’t see much real chance of an ass like him getting elected. After all a novice Socialist like Korchell would stand no chance against Junichiro, who we expected would stand from the Capitalist Party.”

“The blow fell two days later,” said Fenderis, dreamily, “We were playing golf, on these very links. Bradohov was caddying for Jormund who was partnering me against Coral and Artemius. We were losing badly. Of course, it wasn’t entirely our fault. Bradohov’s caddying isn’t unlike his waiting on tables. He invariably gives a putter when you want a 9-iron and a driver when you ask for a mashie niblick. Playing against Coral is never easy when she’s playing to win. On this occasion she was dressed in a corset-like red top and black jeans tighter than an Irishman on Friday night. She usually found some way to assume a particularly seductive pose whenever Jormund or I were readying for a putt, which made things even more difficult. We were on the green of the twelfth when Hedyikk turned up, breathless as usual and clutching a pink paper. He thrust the paper at Coral just as she was bringing the club down on a 4-foot putt, causing her to miss by a matter of yards. To this day, Hedyikk considers himself fortunate that she didn’t have her light-saber on her at that moment. Anyway, once we had finished putting the crazy old Einherjaar together again, we took the time to look at the article he was referring to. It was a shocker, all right. The Capitalist party was announcing that it did not intend to put up a candidate against Korchell to ‘respect the mandate of the people in the last election’.”

“Now as we all know,” I rejoined, “the Capitalist party doesn’t respect the Mandate of the people any more than Fenderis here respects a vegetarian.” – here Elsin looked like she might protest, but didn’t – “which set us thinking that there might be some underhanded skullduggery at play, like you are doing right now.”

“Having said that, we only found out through the merest chance. I had gone to the nondescript serving-house behind the Astrologick BBQ where they make the most divine mutton soup, when who should enter put Prawnson, Junichiro and Yachirobi. Thankfully, I was sitting in a dark corner, and us wolves are pretty good at fading into the background when we want to. I won’t go into the specifics of the conversation they had, but you can rest assured I got the gist all right. Prawnson was, obviously, hand-in-glove with Yachorobi. Their plan was to ensure the destruction of the mandate that the Socialists had received. Korchell was just the sort of sawdust-headed moron they needed to accomplish this task. The withdrawal of the Capitalist Party from the election was to buttress their reputation as a party of principle. Once Korchell was elected, Prawnson was to ensure that he was surrounded by advisors handpicked by Junichiro and Prawnson. These advisors would ensure that Korchell would fail so spectacularly and take such terrible decisions that the people of Midgard would be put off voting for a Socialist Candidate for at least the next two election cycles. Meanwhile, Prawnson would ensure the party machinery would be so weakened that we would not be able to recover for a long time to come. Accordingly when Korchell’s term ran its course, Prawnson would defect from the party with his supporters and endorse Junichiro’s candidacy for the seat. In return, Yachorobi would ensure Prawnson’s elevation to a Central position in the Capitalist National Committee.”

“A dastardly plot, if there ever was one!” I pointed out, “those manipulative bastards of the Capitalist Party! But of course, you know what I’m talking about. Junichiro has told you all about this plan.”

Elsin flicked her hair, apparently in an effort to convey that she didn’t think much of what I’d said.

“Anyway, I sped off to Ariel’s flat directly – oh all right, I sped off after I’d finished my third helping of fried mutton – and told them all that I’d heard. We weren’t exactly shocked or anything of that sort, we’d suspected it to be part of a Vast Right-wing Conspiracy ever since the news of them not contesting the election had broken out. But it was disturbing nonetheless. It felt as if things were getting out of our hands, as if the party and cause we loved so much was being sacrificed to the whims of a few all-too-clever people who were playing with the people’s mandate.”

“We were stumped, frankly,” I resumed, “Prawnson and Junichiro seemed to have played the perfect game. There was no way Korchell could lose running unopposed, and he was too weak a character to resist Joshound’s influence once elected.”

“It was Winter’s idea to run a rebel candidate. It seemed so obvious when she suggested it, we all wondered why we hadn’t thought of it first. Korchell might have the party machinery behind him, but he had no ideological moorings within the movement. All we had to do was convince a long-time party member to stand as a rebel and we were sure our superior intelligence and knowledge of the people of Midgard would serve to wean away the party base from Korchell,” put in Fatty.

“We all agreed with Winter, except Ariel, who disagreed with her as a matter principle. In fact Ariel’s disagreement had less to do with the idea itself than it did with the fact that Winter was wearing a skimpy yellow t-shirt, and Ariel considers it her exclusive right to wear skimpy yellow t-shirts,” I said, “so that was all right, really. We had some discussion on who could be a good rebel candidate and finally zeroed in on Fernando Pastille. You know how that turned out. We ran a brave campaign. I wrote his speeches, Fenderis managed his appearances, Fatty paid to bribe the voters with liquor and Winter and Ariel worked the Union leaders to persuade them to shift their supporters to our side. In the end, it wasn’t enough. Korchell won the election by twenty-eight thousand votes, a landslide.”